my gf and I have been doing some one on one d&d because quarantine, so soon I'm gonna try running DotMM for her kind of as practice for running published adventures (which I haven't done much of).
Now, I know that a solo player is going to have a tough time of this, so her and I are going into this with the assumption that this is more of like an endurance run to see how far she might make it. That said, we wanna avoid NPC followers at least at the beginning, so I'll be starting her off several levels above the stuff on level 1, probably around 8 or 9.
And we know we're not going to get through it all, but it'll be more something we can get back to if we're not doing anything that day on an ongoing basis.
Anyone have any recommendations about running 1on1 or about running DotMM? Or both together?
Yes, don't treat every monster as a killable adversary. Many of the floors have multiple factions vying for control and making friends will yield a lot of resources that most groups miss out on for trying to slash and burn their way through the dungeon. I'm not saying that you're best off trying to do a pacifism run or anything, but from running the dungeon for my group, I have found that it is possible to make nice with about 40-50% of the monsters encountered if you take the time to figure them out and bargain with their needs in mind.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
There isn't a very coherent theme to this module other than look big dungeon! If you can come up with a story line and then sort of have her have to search out different parts of a quest, make allies, visit certain locations etc. it's much more enjoyable. The place is massive too, having some sort of guide or idea of what you're trying to do on each level aside from just wandering around killing stuff makes it much more enjoyable.
There isn't a very coherent theme to this module other than look big dungeon! If you can come up with a story line and then sort of have her have to search out different parts of a quest, make allies, visit certain locations etc. it's much more enjoyable. The place is massive too, having some sort of guide or idea of what you're trying to do on each level aside from just wandering around killing stuff makes it much more enjoyable.
I like this idea. She's not the most into RP which is why when I described a few adventures from Tales from the Yawning Portal and DotMM she opted for MM, but I might go with the mission at the beginning where that person is paying extra for spellbooks. She'll be playing a paladin/warlock, so wizard spellbooks may not be as useful for her, making them a good object for a fetch quest.
If that's the case, then I would suggest reading up on floors 07 (Maddgoth's Castle) and 09 (Dwemercore) and use those as goals for some benefactor to assign to her. Maddgoth literally decorates his house with furniture made from spellbooks of wizards he has killed and Dwemercore is basically Evil Hogwarts.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
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my gf and I have been doing some one on one d&d because quarantine, so soon I'm gonna try running DotMM for her kind of as practice for running published adventures (which I haven't done much of).
Now, I know that a solo player is going to have a tough time of this, so her and I are going into this with the assumption that this is more of like an endurance run to see how far she might make it. That said, we wanna avoid NPC followers at least at the beginning, so I'll be starting her off several levels above the stuff on level 1, probably around 8 or 9.
And we know we're not going to get through it all, but it'll be more something we can get back to if we're not doing anything that day on an ongoing basis.
Anyone have any recommendations about running 1on1 or about running DotMM? Or both together?
Yes, don't treat every monster as a killable adversary. Many of the floors have multiple factions vying for control and making friends will yield a lot of resources that most groups miss out on for trying to slash and burn their way through the dungeon. I'm not saying that you're best off trying to do a pacifism run or anything, but from running the dungeon for my group, I have found that it is possible to make nice with about 40-50% of the monsters encountered if you take the time to figure them out and bargain with their needs in mind.
There isn't a very coherent theme to this module other than look big dungeon! If you can come up with a story line and then sort of have her have to search out different parts of a quest, make allies, visit certain locations etc. it's much more enjoyable. The place is massive too, having some sort of guide or idea of what you're trying to do on each level aside from just wandering around killing stuff makes it much more enjoyable.
I like this idea. She's not the most into RP which is why when I described a few adventures from Tales from the Yawning Portal and DotMM she opted for MM, but I might go with the mission at the beginning where that person is paying extra for spellbooks. She'll be playing a paladin/warlock, so wizard spellbooks may not be as useful for her, making them a good object for a fetch quest.
If that's the case, then I would suggest reading up on floors 07 (Maddgoth's Castle) and 09 (Dwemercore) and use those as goals for some benefactor to assign to her. Maddgoth literally decorates his house with furniture made from spellbooks of wizards he has killed and Dwemercore is basically Evil Hogwarts.